Entrepreneurship Discussion Forum
I went to the Joseph Carter Brown ‘It’s Just F(ric)king Design’ entrepreneurship lecture and I learned much more than I thought I’d originally would. Joseph is an only child and was home schooled. He had to find things to entertain himself with and that helped him to learn how to do things on his own. He had no idea that his hobby of designing things would become a career he would be doing for over 19 years. As a young man Joseph became interested in Apple and the direction they were going in. He wrote letters to Apple to give them his advice on how they could improve their products and marketing. He wrote letter after letter and one day he actually received on back. He jokingly admitted that he didn’t know if Steve Jobs read his letter but that was okay because the Apple letter contained a chance for Joseph to open a new Apple store in Atlanta that was going to be built near by. He was over joyed and of course took the opportunity. At a young age he learned that his persistence would be beneficial to him.
Joseph has a ‘if you can make it, you can sell it mindset’. He knew that he had the drive to be a designer but not all of the knowledge. He did a lot of reading and research to make up for the parts of the business he didn’t know. What makes him such a great designer and entrepreneur is that he has learned that design does not equal designer and that no matter what, your product should function. Looking pretty doesn’t matter if your product doesn’t work. He talks about how designers are dealers of empathy. He asks the question of ‘how do we reduce the work load for our users?’. He notes that the power of design is in the empathy you build not in the power you create. Through his years of experience, he has learned that what people want is not always what they need. Someone might want a website that has many moving objects and colors but that can become confusing and distracting for the customer. Making sure what you produce is functional and does the job in a logical way is more important. Joseph has to often explain this to his clients. He gave the example of one of his photographer clients wanting a portion of their web page to flip through their photos. Joseph explained that there was a better way to show the work and the client agreed with the modification.
Joseph is currently the president of AIGA and is in full swing of using his design and entrepreneurial skills. He has managed to learn the business and put himself on top. One of the things he tried to get into everyone’s head is that learning the business and keeping up with the new tools is important. This really stuck with me because many times designers can be stuck in their old way. He went on to explain that there are and should be more opportunities to collaborate. You shouldn’t be afraid to work with others. The lone wolf secluded act doesn’t work well. This made me happy to hear. I feel like I work better with others. I love knowing that collaboration is such a big part of the industry. Working together with people is something that I want to do to create something amazing in life. Lastly and maybe the most important thing he talked about is that you should have fun. It’s a very hectic industry and people can forget why they got into it. Always try to enjoy yourself because it really is just fricking design.
